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Thought of the Day: On rolling need for offspec drops (in WoW)

One of my current projects is to try tanking on different classes in WoW, just to get a feel for how the mechanics work. I have tanked a few instances on my Death Knight so far, and since I have a perfectly good level 80 resto Druid alt, she’s next on the pimping block.

Now the challenge of gearing up an existing alt for a new role is how you prefer to collect your loot. Do you queue up as your current overpowered self, to make easier dungeon runs both for you and your whole group? Or do you queue as your severely undergeared and inexperienced new role instead? If you pick the former, then you have to also decide, will you roll need for your offspec gear? If you pick the latter, how do you feel about the possibility of being bitched out by the rest of your group for both poor gear AND inexperience?

I had an amusing experience when running normal trial of the champion (to pick up a tanking trinket for her). I was queued as a healer. The trinket drops. I hit need, because that’s the only reason I am there. It is won by a Death Knight, who spends the next minute haranguing me as a ninja.

32 thoughts on “Thought of the Day: On rolling need for offspec drops (in WoW)”

Would you have passed if the tank needed it? That’s the question. A friend of mine will run his 40th FoS today for the Needle-encrusted Scorpion, I think he saw it three times, one roll he lost to dps, one to a warrior-tank, and one to healer….

Nope, I wouldn’t have passed for the tank. I’ve run that instance a lot on numerous alts, and I’m not keen to do it again any more than I have to.

Besides which, there are lots of tanks in the queue for normal TotC. (In fact, I guarantee that if I queued as tank/healer, I’d get picked to heal almost all of the time.) So even if I did pass once, or twice, or seventeen times, there’s still a good chance the next person along wouldn’t say yes.

Much easier to say, “You know, I fully accept that other people might want this trinket also so if it drops then I have a less than 100% chance to get it. But greater than 0.” Because if my chance is 0 then I won’t go at all and I just don’t see that it helps anyone for me to a) queue longer and b) run the instance in my undergeared spec rather than my boosting one.

Hmm. You know, I think you are one of the most insightful and considerate people in the WoW-blogosphere, but this comment (not so much the post itself – yes, the DK is a moron) made my respect for you drop by an amount that makes me very sad. With the exception of the infamous “meat in the room”, this is probably the most selfish and self-righteous thing I read in a while outside of Gevlon’s blog – and he at least has a philosophy to go with it. Sorry.

Well, when you run the same instance over and over only to have a pug offspec need roll and win over your mainspec, then I can understand Spinks’ stance.
If I roll need and a mainspec rolls need and asks me politely there is a chance I will give it to them. But if they are an ass about it, or have been during the run, then they are out of luck.

I needed for the same NTOC trinket and i was a dps, I only did that cause my tank gear gear and skills were not good enough. The tank in my group also needed but i won, he was extremely pissed, he created a new alt in my server and pmed me with all kinds of F words and he also contacted my guild leader and complained to him.

Wouldn’t it be fairer, (and perhaps improve your chances of getting it as in this case maybe the DK wouldn’t have rolled need on it, but he is a DK so he’s probably a fail-bot) to say in the beginning that you are in that run for that drop?

I think if you state up front that you’re there for a specific item for off-spec then nobody should complain. As for how to stop this sort of stuff from occurring, it’s simple: run it with friends/guildies.

The DPS bitched ya out for needing on a tank trink he needed as well? That does take the biscuit :)

Nah. I mean if you joined a guild run and said ‘But I’m going to need on tank gear’ upfront there wouldnt be an aiisue. So in a perfect world it would be nice to say upfront. But this is the world of PuG’s. So fair game.
I’d be a bit peeved if I was running the place to get my tank the trink but hey…thats the way the cookie crumbles….and actualy since starting this post I got the Blackheart on my first go so its alllll good :)

I have no sympathy for people rolling on tank gear over the tank. If you want to tank, then tank. You will be rewarded with an instant queue.

I leveled up my DK to 80 and started tanking. I didn’t run a single instance as DD. ToC normal, FoS normal, PoS normal, HoR normal, then heroics (the ICC normals even reward EoT). I never had anyone bitch about my gear. There were a bunch of druid healers who instantly left group after zoning in but who cares, you get a replacement immediately.

Now ToC normal might be special but I signed up a few times as tank/dd and always got picked as tank and the wait time wasn’t that long anyway (1-2 minutes at most). I doubt there is an overabundance of tanks.

There is just no point in needing tank gear as a non-tank and when you’ve geared up your tank you don’t tun instances anymore because you don’t need any more gear. That’s the fun of the game, to see how your char grows in its role.

Everyone who likes to tank, can. My start gear was the saronite stuff and the 3 BoE crafted epics for head, neck and finger. I crafted them because I wanted a meta and the others last a long time plus it made it easy to reach the required crit reduction. The epics were not required. I tanked with a green 2h mace from a quest up to HoR normal. :-) I made sure to always eat 40 sta food which shows the group that you’re serious.

And the funny thing is, these ICC normal 5mans were the most enjoyable runs in WoW I ever had. Like a run with 3 DD all above 3k dps. Normally you have to dream of a single DD above 3k dps for a heroic. :)

I never roll on cross-role gear when someone needs the gear for the role he’s in the instance.

> I hit need, because that’s the only reason
> I am there

The fact that you’re justifying why you needed it against the tank (because that’s the only reason I am there) already tells me that you know that it was “wrong”. :-)

TL;DR If you want to roll on tank gear as non tank, go for it. I just wanted to motivate everyone to tank if they like to tank. It’s not hard. It’s fun. Most groups are nice, verbally. They might play like idiots but I have never been insulted. If someone doesn’t like your gear, they will drop group. So what, that’s ok. It’s their choice.

I will roll need, but not over someone of that role in the instance. I will state in party “Needing for offset” after I see everyone else hit DE/Greed. I’m not going to let something I need, even for offset, go to shard, but I’m also not going to take a healer piece away from a healer if I’m not the healer etc.

No, no, a million times no. Rolling need for an offspec is never okay without asking first. So what if *you’ve* been there “enough” times? For all you know, the tank you theoretically took that from might have tried to get that oiecw

Sigh, posting from a mobile FTL. I was attempting to say that the tank may have been waiting for that drop for twice as many runs as you’ve been there, and any other time it dropped having some dps take it from him. I’m sorry, but this striles me as claiming that your time is more important than the time of others, and that’s the sort of spoiled-brattishness that lands people on my ignoe list. I’m only giving you benefit of the doubt here because this sort of thing is so completely out of character for you from what I’ve read over the last several months.

Being a Paladin Tank I would have no problem with multi-role players in my Group rolling on Tank gear ONLY IF they were considerate enough to let me know of their intention at the start of the Run.

If you’re not prepared to let the Tank know in advance that they’ll have competition for ‘their’ gear, why not? You don’t necessarily need to announce it in Party chat, but at least respect the Tank enough to let them know with a /tell

That gives them the option of saying No (and hoping you respect them enough to not Roll later anyway), dropping out of the group, or voting to kick You (as soon as they can).

But coasting through an Instance as DPS without saying a word until the final Boss drops an awesome Tank Shield, then Need rolling on it because “Off-spec LOL”, that’s just not on.

OK, I can see there’s a lot of interest in general loot philosophy so I’ll aim to write more on my thoughts on that later this week.

Feel free to keep commenting but I won’t say much more here now, except that this is actually right in line with how I organise loot when I run PUG raids.

My general loot philosophy is:
a) It dropped once, it’ll drop again. Don’t get worked up all out of proportion.
b) Everyone who helped beat a raid or instance should have a fair chance at the loot.
c) Don’t try to fight emergent behaviour.
d) don’t whine if you’re unlucky with the dice rolls. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

The one thing I have learned from PUG instances is simply that there’s no real point letting people know your plans in advance. It won’t actually make anyone happier. The best you can hope for is that anyone who disagrees leaves of their own accord because the majority of people will just sit there silently so you’ll never know if you had a majority or not.

Obv this doesn’t apply when running with friends, guildies, or people who won’t get upset if they are asked to actually discuss something like grown ups ;)

At a guess, because she’s trying to gear for something so is specifically picking instances to get the item in question? This is, basically, Grinding for an item, and I can’t forsee a situation where there will be Tank running Normal Randoms who DOESN’T want the Black Heart. So yeah, roll need. Heck, bring a Friend along and have THEM roll need too. I have little remorse, but then I have to PuG with people from PvP servers.

I say it when I lose a roll also. I say it in raids if someone outbids me on something I would have wanted too. And I would encourage everyone else to take the same approach, it’s much more chilled out than spitting out your dummy because someone dared roll on ‘your’ loot.

“It dropped once, it’ll drop again” could be used against your argument that you deserved the piece in question, here.

Some people don’t have sympathy for taking loot away from someone just because they’re not in the right spec at the moment. I don’t have sympathy for people who don’t get to roll on something because they aren’t of the right spec. I can’t say how many times I’ve passed up a tanking item because the actual freakin’ tank happened to need it.

It still chaps my hide that a tank had the temerity to roll need on (and win) the Hilt. If he wanted the Hilt, he shouldn’t have been tanking.

It’s not a case of deserving anything, though. It’s more a case of agreeing to let the RNG sort it out. And by being in a random PUG, you are basically agreeing to use the RNG to resolve loot issues, if only because you can’t stop someone from rolling need on items they can use.

The random number generator doesn’t care which player is more deserving. I just think it’s a much neater way to decide than having long drawn out arguments in group, especially with people from different servers who might have different customs anyway.

What? Incorrect as the DK in the story may have been, the group clearly didn’t “agree” to let the RNG sort things out. You agreed–on your own–and unilaterally forced everyone to see things your way by clicking the Need button, no matter what the others were expecting out of the run or out of the others in the group.

You clicked Need because you are tired of the instance and decided that your desire never to run ToC again was more important than someone else’s time. How hard would it really have been to just ask first if people mind a need roll on the item? It takes 5 seconds to type that out and wait for an answer (and only the tank’s answer is relevant on a piece of tanking gear). That the tank apparently didn’t want the item in this case anyway is irrelevant to the overall point.

From the perspective of someone who started WoW in March 2005 this storm in a teacup is fascinating.

When I first played WoW as a Druid, back when level 40 was “high level” and most of us were pretty new to MMOs none of these expectations existed. Need and Greed were concepts imported from Everquest – I don’t even think they were in the game as options, they were simply things people said in party chat when stuff dropped.

Hybrids rolled on everything they could use.

You see if we hadn’t we wouldn’t have been hybrids, we’d have been healbots. As a Druid I rolled on healer loot which everyone expected and I rolled on “Rogue loot” which always annoyed the Rogues.

It only really settled into main spec prio on my server around autumn 2007 and I never quite saw the point.

Free for all actually works better as a system because tank prio means tanks finish collecting gear faster and stop tanking, creating tank crises. Likewise for healers. You end up with well-geared healers turning up in crappy blue/green dps sets as dps so we can have the uncontested right to roll on dps stuff. Then the crappy blue/green healer rolls need on the dps trinket we wanted anyway. Meh.

I think it’s pretty ridiculous that everyone is getting worked up over him needing.

I understand when you’re on cutting edge content, giving gear to people who are using it is important. The problem is that this is not even a heroic instance. Spinks shows up and makes the run easier by overgearing it and in turn gets a chance at the loot. That is the only piece she needed and wouldn’t even be there helping.

Would people be as upset about this if she was rolling for a DPS item? Would you get all up in arms if you were the tank and she rolled on a DPS item?

Too many people get their panties in a twist over loot. Yeah, I get annoyed when I lose out on gear, but it will always drop again.

It’s all fair game in 5mans. Especially normals. With no lockout, you can farm till your eyes bleed and you finally get the item you wanted/needed.

With Blizzard having put in the deserter debuff on 5mans, there’s no incentive on leaving the group when someone’s declaring that they’d like a specific item. Everyone’s time is just as valuable as the next person’s, but just because someone queued as a tank/healer, it shouldn’t give them exclusive rights to every item that they can use right now.

By queuing as my main spec, I’m trying to help the run out and keep things flowing. It’s not because my offspec isn’t geared, or I’m not as good at it. It’s because it’s the role I’m most comfortable with using if things go south.

If I’m asked to heal in a raid, I make it clear that I’m rolling on dps gear. If they don’t like it, they can leave, or find another healer.

I find it amusing how many people have “lost respect” for the author because his views don’t agree with yours. What if someone else you “respected” had a different view to yours on abortion/gun control/healthcare reform/choose your topic of choice? Would you suddenly lose respect for them? If you respect someone, you’ll also respect their own views. You can agree to disagree and leave it at that. Instead, many of you have chosen to rebuke the author because of his views. That shows that you never respected him and shows a lack of maturity. Funnily enough, the author has shown that they respect your view and hasn’t decide to flame you for your thoughts on the topic.

Anyway, it’s not about lack of respect for someone who has a view that’s different from mine. Many of my friends disagree with me politically and that doesn’t stop me from being friends with them. I simply took umbrage that her reasoning, by her own admission, boiled down to, “I’m tired of ToC and I didn’t want to run it anymore, so I took the item.” Her justifications seemed only to complement the desire to just take the item and get it all over with.

At this point, though, I’m withholding further judgment until Spinks makes her post on loot philosophy. There’s little point in debating it beyond this point if all we’re doing is speculating on how she typically deals with loot.

I absolutely think that this person is wrong. About 20 minutes ago, we hit the last boss in the instance and a fairly amazing shield dropped. The dps warrior (with a two hander) rolled on it. Y’all who are defending this practice, how do you feel when this happens to you. I spent half an hour running this dungeon only to have someone take a shield they will certainly never use.

Players that bitch about losing on a Need role because of some feeling of entitlement really show their maturity level. For all you youngens, MMOs of 2000 didnt have these fancy pants need / greed rolls. You could group all night, see one great drop and watch as some player in the group who doesnt “need” an item “ninja” it to twink their alt. You didn’t have BOP or BOE, and you deffinatley didnt have lock down looting.

Put it this way. Blizzard has a great loot system in place. You can only need on items you can actually use. If Blizzard decides to limit need on spec classifications, then so be it. All that will do is remove more BOP gear out of circulation. More specific “need” qualifications = more greed rolls = more vendor / disenchant = less developed off specs. But it will also do away with strife caused by players sense of entitlement.

In short. Im in a PUG and I can need on something I need with my dual spec, im going to need it. I wont think twice about it because I probably wont ever group with you again. Thats the beauty of PUGs. Now if its a guild mate, thats a different scenario. Those players I will group with again.